


(Not So) Fine

by dirkygoodness



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Crying, Gen, Hangover, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Time travel PTSD solidarity, Timeline What Timeline, idk where this goes in the timeline, more five and klaus accidentally making eachother feel better, post-apocalypse stopping, this was supposed to be more about klaus this time but here we are, tho this time it's not so accidental
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-13 01:50:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18022541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirkygoodness/pseuds/dirkygoodness
Summary: Klaus is on his knees picking glass up, muttering curses under his breath as he goes.Five looks up at the ceiling with a silent, 'why me’, before pushing himself up from the door frame and walking into the room.





	(Not So) Fine

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be about klaus but here we are
> 
> its me birthday tomorrow so i probably wont post for a little while, so apologies in advance!

Hangovers sucked, particularly so inside the body of a thirteen year old that got tipsy off one shot. He probably should have taken that into account when he was drinking, the night before, but. 

Well, Five never pretended he was infallible - though, if his family asked, he definitely was. Five has no idea what time it is, and he doesn't care. 

He doesn't even try and squint his bleary eyes at the clocks on the wall to try and tell, knows better. Five just shuffles down the stairs as gingerly as he can, trying not to jostle his head too much. Still, every step was like drums banging around inside his skull. 

By the time he makes it to the kitchen it's a pleasant relief, and he uses his powers and jumps around grabbing everything he needs for coffee. 

While it's percolating Five sits at the table and lets his head rest against the cool surface. Revels in the temporary relief from the pounding against his head. He tries not to fall back asleep as he waits, repeatedly having to snap open his eyes seconds before he nodded off. He barely succeeds, lifting his head up finally when he hears the coffee pot beep at him. 

He grabs his cup off the table and gives himself far more coffee than he needs, filling it to the brim and sipping off excess so he doesn't spill. The coffee burns his tongue, too hot still to drink safely, but he doesn't really care. Takes another drink and starts heading back upstairs.

He manages to get about halfway to his room before a loud, shattering crash echoes behind him and he nearly drops his coffee, letting out a barely contained yelp. Five hisses out a growl, clenching his teeth, holding the coffee cup with a white knuckled grip. The noise makes his head throb, and he closes his eyes against it. 

Stands there for a moment, collects himself before dragging his eyes open again. Five debates what he should do, not really feeling in the mood to go investigate what’d happened. 

_ But  _ if he leaves it there’s a pretty good chance something else is going to happen. Most likely when he’s half asleep as it jolts him to painful awareness. So, with a frustrated grown he spins around and heads in the direction of the noise. 

His very minor investigation brings him to Klaus’ room, whose door is open. Klaus is sitting on the floor of the room, surrounded by what looks to be the remains of a tall glass of water - glass shards scattered around him. As Five keeps looking he spots a table knocked over, its lamp casting ominous light across the room from it's fallen position.

Klaus is on his knees picking glass up, muttering curses under his breath as he goes. Five steps into the doorway, making a clicking noise against the side of his cheek in barely concealed annoyance. It draws Klaus’ attention from what he’s doing up to him. 

“I'm going to kindly ask that you keep your shit down to the bare minimum, today, Klaus.” Five sighs dramatically and casually puts his free hand into his pocket, leaning against the doorframe. “Though, I know that’s going to be hard for you.”

“Oh, I dunno, I've got lots of shit planned today,” Klaus shoots back, and while the words are their normal level of snark, Klaus’ voice breaks a little as he says it. “And shits kind of hard to reschedule, you know.” 

Five narrows his eyes and stands up straighter, actually taking Klaus in, now. There's heavy bags under his eyes and a fine layer of sweat on his body, and as he moves to pick up the glass shards one by one his hands tremble violently. 

He’s still in his pajamas, and Five knows for a fact that he wasn’t awake when he got up to get his coffee - Klaus tends to make a lot of noise, in the mornings, getting ready. And there’s a ghostly pale look to his face that’s different than his normal-pale look. Like he’d just seen something horrible or something. 

…

Maybe he has.

Five looks up at the ceiling with a silent,  _ 'why me’, _ before pushing himself up from the door frame and walking into the room. He sets his cup down against the closest table - the nightstand by the bed - and kneels down in front of Klaus, careful to avoid kneeling on the glass. 

Without a word he starts carefully picking up the glass and piling them in his off hand, and yeah, now that he’s close enough it’s definitely water that’d spilled. Room temperature water, so it’d probably been on his table for a while. The puzzled  _ look  _ Klaus gives him is distracting, and when he doesn’t stop staring Five groans and looks up at him, raising his eyebrows. 

“What?” Five shakes his head a bit, trying to get Klaus to speak. “Why’re you staring at me?”

“What the hell’re you doing?” Is his way of responding, his hands dropping limply against the hardwood, a few pieces of broken glass tumbling out of his palms. 

“What’s it look like, dipshit?” Five rolls his eyes and turns back down to the mess Klaus’d made, going back to picking it up. Klaus makes a little distressed noise and grabs his wrist, stopping him. Five purses his lips and looks back up at him.

“How am I supposed to clean if you-”

_ “Why  _ are you helping, exactly?” Klaus questions, and Five almost gives him another snide remark as answer, but. 

Something about the look on Klaus’ face, a little too tired, a little too worn, a little too old for his time, reminds Five a  _ little  _ too much of himself and he swallows the retort as it starts. Pauses a moment to actually  _ think _ about his response, for once in his life. Chews the inside of his cheek. 

Why  _ was  _ he actually helping Klaus? All he had to do was make sure he wasn’t loud anymore so Five could sleep, and somehow he’d ended up making it harder on himself. 

He knows why. 

Knows it’s because he  _ knows  _ the look on Klaus’ face. Five screws his mouth up into a wince at the thought, looking back down at the glass and water mess on the floor.

“‘Cause you looked pathetic, trying to clean this up by yourself.” Five says, and knows it’s still too harsh. Still not enough. Grimaces and huffs a breath. “And… y’know, I might be the only person in the house who can understand some of what you’re dealing with.”

“Uh,” Klaus says, because he’s a colossal  _ idiot.  _ “I’m pretty sure other people have knocked glass cups on the floor, before, Five.”

“No, you fucking  _ dumbass,”  _ Five snarls, snapping his head back up to glare daggers at Klaus. “I’m talking about the fact that you clearly either just had a nightmare or some kind of fucking flashback, and while the rest of our family is fucked up I’ve never seen any of _ them _ go through that. And I know how fucking awful it feels, especially if it wakes you up. So forgive me for giving you an ounce of sympathy! You know, this is why I don’t talk to any of you. You’re so fucking oblivious and  _ young  _ and-” 

“Five-”

“- _ dumb!  _ It’s like trying to hold a conversation with a damn  _ three year old!  _ I try and say anything serious and you all focus on the  _ one thing  _ about it that’s  _ irrelevant!”  _

_ “Five!”  _ Klaus shouts, startling Five out of his rant for a moment and he huffs a breath and pulls his hand out of Klaus’ hold.

_ “What?!”  _ Five shouts back, the action drawing more throbbing pain across his skull and he winces and ends up having to squint to look at Klaus’ face. Which. Is. He’s  _ smiling,  _ for some fucking reason.

“Thanks.” Klaus says it so casually, like it wasn’t any big thing. 

But. 

It knocks the breath out of Five because,  _ what?  _ No one had ever…  _ thanked  _ him. For  _ anything.  _ Not when he was a kid,  _ definitely  _ not when he was in the future, and never in the Commission. It was…

It was kind of nice. 

Five doesn’t know how to handle  _ nice.  _

He huffs another breath and looks back down to the floor, carefully picking up more glass. Doesn’t say anything else, because he can already feel the telltale burning against his eyes that in the past meant he’d gotten too much ash in them. He knows what it means here, though, too. 

Klaus,  _ fucking Klaus,  _ starts laughing, for some ungodly reason. Loud and somehow actually  _ happy  _ even though he’d just been nearly having a panic attack or something a moment before. Being around Klaus was giving him whiplash. He doesn’t stop laughing, even as he starts picking up pieces of glass off the floor. 

“Why are you laughing, you crazy bastard?” Five snorts, shooting Klaus a glance and - he freezes when he sees days-old mascara streaking down Klaus’ face as he cries. 

He smiling, grinning even, with a pile of broken glass in his hand, as he cries and laughs. Five doesn’t know what to do. Was - was he sad? Was he happy? Should Five do something? Say something? Why the hell was he laughing??   
  
“‘Cause this is the first time in my entire life when I’m feeling okay after everything. The world ended, we fixed it, so many people I love have died, but I’m still here. Picking up glass of my bedroom floor while my fifty-eight year old brother in the body of a thirteen-year old helps me.” Klaus is really laughing, now, and he drops the glass in his hand in favor of wrapping them around his waist as he doubles over laughing. “And tells me shit that’s almost out of a self-help book, to boot.” 

He doesn’t know what about it starts it. 

Five doesn’t even really register the urge, for a moment, but then his chest aches and he sucks in a shaking breath and suddenly he feels tears streaking down his face too. 

And his head hurts, and he’s  _ oh-so-tired,  _ and he just wants to drink his coffee and sleep but he’s here trying to make Klaus feel better for some fucking reason. 

Because Five doesn’t know what he’s going to do with the rest of his life. Because he doesn’t want to be alone, and because he hasn’t cried in nearly forty years. 

Because Klaus wont stop laughing.

“Shut up,” Five cries, his shoulders hunching against his accord and Klaus makes a little,  _ heartfelt  _ noise in the back of his throat. 

He reaches over and grabs Five’s bicep as he, too, lets the glass he’d picked up fall to the floor as he rubs his eyes with the back of his hands. His breath is coming in quicker, now, and the tears are somehow coming quicker and Five  _ hates it  _ but he can’t  _ do  _ anything but sit there as it happens. 

“Aww, Fi-i-ive,” Klaus says, grabbing his shoulder with his other hand, and Klaus sounds as fucked up as Five is so at the very least, there’s that. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you  _ cry.  _ Fi _ ve.”  _ And then Five’s being pulled into a fucking  _ hug,  _ of all things, Klaus leaning over the pile of glass shards between them to do it. 

“I hate you,” Five hiccups against his shoulder, too tired to try and pull out of the hold - or to jump away. Klaus just makes another soft noise and rubs his back, the bastard.

“I hate you too, ya’ old coot.”

Five sucks in another, sharp breath, and just lets himself go limp in the hug. Tries really hard not to think about what they’ll look like if someone finds them like this - two grown men (even if not  _ physically _ ) sobbing as they hug over a pile of wet, broken glass, with a room that’s trashed and looks like a tornado went through it. 

They look stupid, that’s for sure. 

Five still doesn’t pull away, though. 


End file.
